Prevalence of wind farm amplitude modulation at long-range residential locations

Date

2019

Authors

Hansen, K.L.
Nguyen, P.
Zajamšek, B.
Catcheside, P.
Hansen, C.H.

Editors

Advisors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Type:

Journal article

Citation

Journal of Sound and Vibration, 2019; 455:136-149

Statement of Responsibility

Kristy L. Hansen, Phuc Nguyen, Branko Zajamšek, Peter Catcheside, Colin H. Hansen

Conference Name

Abstract

The presence of amplitude modulation (AM) in wind farm noise has been shown to result in increased annoyance. Therefore, it is important to determine how often this characteristic is present at residential locations near a wind farm. This study investigates the prevalence and characteristics of wind farm AM at 9 different residences located near a South Australian wind farm that has been the subject of complaints from local residents. It is shown that an audible indoor low-frequency tone was amplitude modulated at the blade-pass frequency for 20% of the time up to a distance of 2.4 km. The audible AM occurred for a similar percentage of time between wind farm percentage power capacities of 40 and 85%, indicating that it is important that AM analysis is not restricted to high power output conditions only. Although the number of AM events is shown to reduce with distance, audible indoor AM still occurred for 16% of the time at a distance of 3.5 km. At distances of 7.6 and 8.8 km, audible AM was only detected on one occasion. At night-time, audible AM occurred indoors at residences located as far as 3.5 km from the wind farm for up to 22% of the time.

School/Discipline

Dissertation Note

Provenance

Description

Access Status

Rights

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

License

Call number

Persistent link to this record